


Akh to the Future

by CardiacCrisis



Series: His Second Second Life [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Citronshipping, Fluff, M/M, Thiefshipping, also puns because no one can stop me, the ancient egyptian concept of the soul is just neat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-08-20 00:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16545170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CardiacCrisis/pseuds/CardiacCrisis
Summary: On a whim, a young thief graffitied a thoroughly-looted tomb. Because of it, he gets to enjoy eternity as an akh, a powerful spirit that can cross freely between the mortal realm and the Field of Reeds.The long-awaited demise of the unnamed pharaoh also gave Malik a new lease on life, but all evidence points to him being just as chained by his past as he was before.Perhaps a little magic can change that!(Thiefshipping/Citronshipping)





	1. Prologue: A Ghost Town

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank-you to [Sitabethel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sitabethel/pseuds/sitabethel) and [Bittercalypso](https://bittercalypso.tumblr.com/): to Sita for hosting the [Alchemy of Thiefshipping](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Alchemy_of_Thiefshipping) event, to Bittercalypso for drawing super cute art for this fic, and to both for betaing the story! 
> 
> And another big thanks to [dmbakura](http://dmbakura.tumblr.com/) / [Girahimu-sama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girahimu_sama) for letting me borrow some lore!

It was empty.

The tomb was empty.

Other thieves must have beat him to it, because the burial chamber was devoid of anything that had even the slightest bit of value. Only cracked wood, broken pottery, and debris remained, marinated in an awful stench.

Bakura fell to his knees, hands clasped to his face, blood dripping sluggishly between his fingers. He had risked his life to get the directions to this tomb, was still at risk of losing an eye, and he had nothing to show for it.

His stomach was painfully empty and his feet were sore from crossing so far through the desert to reach this place. It would be a hard walk back to the tiny cave he currently called home. His eyes burned with frustration, with shame, and with growing anger.

The bright colors of the painted wall reflecting the torchlight caught his eye. It was a burial scene, of course, and from what little he remembered of his father's teachings, most of the writing here would be prayers to ease the dead king's passage into the afterlife.

Rage gripped the young thief’s throat. It wasn't right, _it wasn't right_ that this man would enjoy paradise while Bakura's family would burn, burn, burn for eternity, without rest, without respite.

His gaze wildly sought out a painted cartouche, and a sort of madness settled into his bones. He leapt at the offending wall, and used the blood pouring down his face to cross out the king's name and unevenly scribble the name of his village just above it. He spotted another cartouche and did the same, and another, and another, until blood no longer poured freely from his wound and dizziness superseded the anger driving him.

He sat on the floor of the tomb for a while, catching his breath. And then he started the long journey back to the nest of rags he called a bed, stumbling wearily through the desert.

The ghosts followed, silent for once, or perhaps the thief’s hearing was also failing him.

It was no matter. No matter how long it took, no matter what it cost him, he would make sure they had justice.

Or he would die trying.

 

* * *

 

The judgment hall's antechamber wasn't meant to be this full, but compared to the compacted gold of the Millennium Items, these quarters were spacious. To keep the floor in front of the grand entrance doors clear, the villagers stood in a tight crowd, perfectly still to avoid jostling the others.

It should have been a time for celebration, for hugs and shouting and tears of joy, but they weren't in the clear just yet. After all, the only existence that could possibly be worse than being melted down and mixed up with your neighbors to enable dark magic was being torn up by Ammit’s dagger-like teeth and sentenced to a second death in her bowels.

So they waited, pressed together in uneasy silence, all eyes on the doors ahead of them. They could not proceed until the pharaoh finished his audience with the gods.

 

* * *

 

After what seemed to have been an eternity, the intricately-carved electrum doors swung open. The sweet aroma of incense and lotus flowers drifted into the antechamber with the soft hubbub of a well-mannered crowd, and a little bit of life stirred within the villagers. A toddler stumbled forward first, her mother scooped her up, and then the crowd started pouring into the judgement hall.

The massive scales of Ma’at immediately drew the eye, with Ma’at herself perched atop it and Ammit licking her jaws near its base. Around the edges of the circular room were a pantheon of gods, golden skin shining brightly as they reclined on beautifully embroidered pillows and blankets and chaises. A menagerie of colorful creatures attended to their every need, bringing plump fruits to their lips, pouring wine and beer into goblets, and grooming heavenly hair or fur or feathers. The walls were richly decorated with jewels and precious stones depicting mythical scenes, but there was no ceiling, the room opening up to a sunset sky colored with rich purples and reds, each star a distant akh surveying the court.  

The villagers’ silence lifted in the presence of the gods - some fell to their knees, others started to murmur amongst themselves, and the villagers started to seek familiar faces in the crowd. As it sunk in that they were truly in the judgement hall, far from the cursed gold that had kept them in suspended suffering for so long, the villagers became louder and more exuberant. They hugged and laughed and kissed and talked and danced until a sonorous boom resounded through the room.

All chatter, from the gods and the mortals alike, fell silent as Anubis stepped forward.

“Villagers of Kul Elna, today you stand judgement before the Tribunal for the right to the afterlife. You shall line up and recount before the great god Osiris, one by one, each of your sins, and if you are deemed worthy, your hearts shall be weighed against-”

“Excuse me, Lord Anubis sir, if I may ask a quick question-”

Anubis paused, surprised, eyes seeking out the speaker, who helpfully stepped forward from the crowd of villagers. All eyes focused on the man sweeping a loose coil of hair behind his ear as he peered up at the jackal-like god.

“Hi yes, it's me, Hamadi! Asking the question! And the question is: Why do we have to defend ourselves before the Tribunal?”

The silence deepened in the courtroom, then dissolved into muttering from the assembled gods, varied levels of derisiveness coloring their voices. Anubis cleared his throat meaningfully, then waited for silence to be restored.

“Hamadi of Raqote and Kul Elna, as a former student of the Prince’s School, you are well-versed in the rites of passage to the afterlife. Perhaps-”

“No, he's right!”

Anubis paused again, miffed, as a woman bustled her way through the crowd of villagers, long white hair streaming behind her. She made her way out into the open, shook her shendyt out, then marched right up to the god of death.

“He's right! The hearts that belong on the Scales today are the ones belonging to each god complicit in this disaster.”

Anubis may have replied, but Sati took no notice, turning to face the immortal audience.

“Which of you is responsible for the creation of the Spellbook of Darkness? How could any of you have allowed the book to fall into the hands of the highest priesthood and most moral corruption in the black lands? How many of you ignored the pleas of the innocents gathered up as sacrifices for the creation of the Millennium Items? Who stood by, silent, as townspeople were wrongfully imprisoned and tortured to create more powerful ka for the royal court to use as living weapons and shields during their training so as not to risk their own damn ba?”

The gods shifted uncomfortably. Hamadi shrugged.

“Even if we _had_ sinned during our lives- not that any of us did, of course- hey, you've got to admit that a little theft here and some forbidden nookie there, that's nothing compared to the pain stretched out over the millennia. Oh- and didn't a whole cult stay underground this whole time, parents torturing each succeeding generation? By all accounts, that's pretty fucked up.”

The villagers started to murmur to each other, agreeing that it _was_ all pretty fucked up now that they thought about it properly.

Anubis stared at the assembled villagers for another few moments, then sighed, turning upwards toward Ma’at’s perch atop the massive Scales. Ma’at too said nothing for a few moments, preening a wing, then she shuffled on her perch and peered at the village.

“Their words weigh true. Isfet has run amok for too long, and the Scales’ imbalance is against the feather.”

She stretched her wings up toward infinity in homage to the sun.

“The village of Kul Elna is true of voice. May Osiris make them effective, and give them passage to the Field of Reeds beyond the sky’s embrace.”

Ammit, recognizing the gesture, slumped with a soft growl, knowing she would not get to eat any of the delicious mortals before her.

The villagers, however, broke out into cheers and tears and laughter as they felt their cores brighten and shine with the light of an akh. One by one, they slowly lifted off the ground and started ambling upwards, joining the stars in the sky.

The two villagers who had spoken remained on the courtroom floor, making no movements to join their brethren above.

Thoth turned his beak from the scroll upon which he'd been scribing the proceedings to look at Sati with a faint glimmer of pride in his eye.

“That was excellently said, child.”

Sati did not look as pleased as she perhaps should have been upon receiving a compliment from a god. She did not spare Thoth a glance, instead looking up expectantly at the sky.

“Thank you, Mother always said I should have been a kenbet judge instead of a doctor, and I suspect I'm not done yet.”

There was an uncomfortable silence in the courtroom for a few moments, many of the gods flitting their gazes between the two remaining villagers and the sky.

A star blinked in the sky, and then rapidly grew in the sky as an akh hurtled toward the court.

Sati’s face twisted with rage as the villager came into sight.

“I knew it,” she snarled, just as the frantic child skidded to a stop in front of her.

“Bakura isn't in the Fields,” he cried, and Sati clenched her fists but then he continued, “Bakura isn't there, _but Akhenaden is!”_

“WHAT?!” roared Sati, her rage setting her spirit aflame, a barely humanoid shape as she turned back toward the gods of the tribunal. “How dare you forgive _that motherfucker_ and set _us_ before a jury!”

The sky was full of comets descending, and soon all of the villagers of Kul Elna filled the judgement hall once more, their previously bright forms faded with grief and blurred with anger, reverting to their ghostly manifestations seeking vengeance and howling in a whirlwind that darkened the judgement hall.

Anubis had a look of distaste plastered on his snout. “Akhenaden did not face the scales, just as you have not. As the high priest for both Pharaoh Atem and Pharaoh Set, he was brought in as part of Set’s court. It was a sort of diplomatic immunity-”

 ** _“Shut the fuck UP with your excuses!_** **_Where is my son?”_** each of Sati’s words was a pulse of divine fury, a khopesh of flame bursting into existence in her hand, **_“WHERE IS MY SON?”_**

Anubis looked a little concerned. “Unfortunately, your son’s heart outweighed the feather of Ma’at-”

Sati’s howl of grief and rage shook the foundations of the heavens. The village joined in, mourning the loss of one of their own.

Sati shook, but her sword arm remained steady as she hissed, “What kind of goddamn afterlife can be called Heaven without your family, without your loved ones? We struggle our whole miserable fucking lives to follow the narrow laws set forth the gods, and for _what_ , a lie that we'll get everything we want if we just behave and play quietly? And all the while, you get to lounge about among the stars, grant a few boons if you can be arsed and ignore the desperate prayers of the rest, and judge each and every soul according to _your_ morality and-”

“Found him!”

Sati paused, and the whole court turned to Hamadi. He was crouching next to a hogtied Ammit, shoulder-deep her throat while a sapphire-encrusted sceptre wedged her crocodilian jaws open.

“Didn't you know? Crocodiles can't chew.”

With some major effort, he was able to pull his arm back out, and in his hand he gripped something soggy and covered in what looked like dried and cracked purple-black mud.

Hamadi looked quite pleased with himself as he dried it off with a corner of his cloak.

“It may have been a couple of months since he got eaten, but he's our son. He's made from sterner stuff! Plus, it's been quite a while since there's been anyone for Ammit to eat, hasn't it? Not a big crowd down her throat now, anyways.”

Sati narrowed her eyes at the thing, then gasped, flying toward it and snatching it from her husband's hand.

“Bakura! How did you end up like this, what is this nasty shit?” She licked her thumb, and then scrubbed at the mud-like substance, rubbing some of it off and letting the some of the blue-white glow of the soul underneath escape.

Sati laughed at the sight, and Hamadi grinned, setting his hands on either side of the soul.

“I think if you rub it like a hard-boiled egg, you should be able to get the gunk right off it, just like a shell-” and it did work, exposing more of the soul, but Sati just grinned and let the bright fire of her own ka spill over, pouring over the soul and burning away every scrap of the remaining Zorc residue without hurting it.

The soul glowed faintly, and once uncovered, it unfurled slowly, a pale white spirit with no mouth. Sati’s lips drooped.

“No one's opened your mouth, have they? You poor creature, no wonder you ended up in Ammit’s jaws.”

“Hmmm…” Hamadi scrutinized their son. “I don't know, I get the feeling that he's off somehow.”

Sati scowled as she squeezed Bakura closer to herself. “Well of course he's a little worse for wear, he's been through several thousand years of bullshit courtesy of _this court_.” Her pointed glare told the assembled gods that her rage still bubbled like volcanic magma.

Hamadi tugged thoughtfully at his short beard. “No, no, I don't think it's that. This feels like — and I ask the court to excuse me for saying this — but I think our son has a little bit of an _Osiris situation_ going on, if you get my drift.”

Sati’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline and she gave a quick, panicked glance at the spirit in her arms. “Are you saying he's missing his-”

“No, I mean that he _feels_ like our son, but is this really all that's left of him? He may be pale, but he's more sheut than anything else.”

Sati looked him over as well, muttering to herself, then snapped her gaze back to the tribunal.

“Well? Where's the rest of my son, you assholes?”

The tribunal of gods broke into uneasy muttering, and Sati looked like she was going to get right back into her murderous rage when several villagers rushed toward her.

“They mentioned the Shadow Realm, the rest of Bakura must be in the Shadow Realm!”

Sati grinned. “Oh, we know that place well enough, don't we? Let's go get our son.”

The villagers swarmed around her, and she joined them, another spirit in a river coursing between dimensions. It didn't take long to reach the shadow realm, especially since the villagers had been attuned to its frequency for millennia.

Monsters scrambled wildly out of their way, overwhelmed by the strength of their combined light and power. They coursed through the sky like a galaxy of stars, eyes scrutinizing the creatures on the ground for one of their number.

“There! There he is!” cried a child, and the stream of spirits changed course. Sati made it to the soul first, and she swung around to look at him.

Red eyes looked back at her with suspicion, then surprise. Then the pale soul looked up to see the rest of the villagers hovering overhead. He trembled, then collapsed at Sati’s feet with a helpless sob.

She scooped him up off the ground, the spirit who looked nothing like what she would have imagined her son to look like but that was undoubtedly her son, and squeezed him close. His tears poured freely onto Sati’s shoulder and she smiled, lifting a hand to shift away the thick white hair covering his face so she could kiss his forehead.

Bakura gasped, looking up at her for another moment, but then he dissolved into tears again, hiding his face against her shoulder. She pressed another kiss onto his hair, gave him an affectionate squeeze, then turned toward the stream of villagers in the sky, joining the river of lights on their way back to the realm of the gods.

Hamadi was there waiting with the first piece of Bakura's soul, which had taken a human form similar to the piece Sati had found in the shadow realm. He was showing his father the duel disk on his arm when Sati approached. Both men turned to look, and Hamadi smiled when he saw his wife, another piece of their son in her arms and wiping at his tears.

“I knew you'd find him, love.” He looked from one part of his son, to the other part, then at Sati. “Uh, how are we supposed to put him back together?”

Sati frowned. “I don't know, I'm not sure how our son ended up like this in the first place.”

“You're a doctor though, right? Surely you can stitch a man back together!”

Sati rolled her eyes at his grin. “Yeah, I'm great at stitching, it's truly a miracle I haven't stitched your lips together yet.”

While Hamadi laughed, Sati moved closer to the other copy of her son. The silent soul fragment mirrored her movement, then reached out to touch the son in her arms. Suddenly the two were one brighter bundle in her arms, a sphere of shifting light and color, blues, purples, white and gold and black. Sati hugged the soul to herself, feeling its slight warmth and faint pulse.

“It's okay,” she murmured, “and we're going to finish putting you back together again. We just need to find-”

The courtroom doors slammed open and a bank of fog rolled into the courtroom. Off in the hallway a small stampede of hoofbeats quickly approached. The shadow of a horned nightmare creature burst into the room, a dozen legs silhouetted in the fog as it reared up and screamed.

When its hooves stamped back onto the ground, the fog cleared, revealing a massive, monstrous ram with too many legs and too many eyes, fur blood-streaked and singed. Lava drooled from its fang-filled jaws and hissed as dripped onto the marble floors. Its carmine-cloaked rider held its horns like reins, a bloodied shield and spear strapped to their back, and they moved to stand on the beast’s back, reveling in the undivided attention of the tribunal.

“H-ha ha ha ha ha- oh, but why such silence here? Weren't you expecting me, my dear gods? Where is my warm welcome, after I've toiled day and night so far through the Duat to see you?”

He clutched his scarred chest for a moment as if he was mortally wounded by their oversight, then made himself comfortable atop the massive horns of his infernal steed as if it were just a couch.

“Perhaps you've all just been too busy judging mortals? I can relate- there are just so many wrongdoers these days, what is wrong with this generation, am I right? But while you've been busy busy busy, you've forgotten one itsy-bitsy, teensy-weensy little detail. Just a triviality, really.”

Holding a hand up to his mouth, he said in a stage whisper, “The gods are _also_ responsible for upholding Ma’at, and so they too should be judged by the Scales.”

“And I know you all are just _so_ busy, but don't worry, I'm here to help! Look, I'll even do your negative confessions for you!”

He cleared his throat and put on the nasally, crisp accent of a high priest.

“I have not spared the lands of Egypt from famine and poverty. I have not stopped foreign nations from amassing armies at Egypt's borders. I have not prevented the highest court in the land from committing the widespread torture and murder of the people of Egypt in order to wield the powers of darkness.”

Back to his normal voice, he continued.

“Since all the gods are being charged, I'll just have to volunteer to be the judge, jury and executioner, since I'm the highest-ranking mortal here as the great King of Thieves. So, let's think about the details of the case.”

Tapping his chin in a mockery of thoughtfulness, he looked up at the ceiling.

“It sounds an awful lot like the gods have actually been committing treason, doesn't it? I think that's what they call ‘an abomination unto Ma’at’. And the price for treason is death by immolation, isn't it? A pretty crappy way to go, but loads better than what my village went through so, really, it's a bargain!”

He hopped to his feet, still using the ram as his personal stage, then clapped as if it had all been decided.

“Now if all of you would do me a favor and line up nicely, I think Diabound could do the honors all at once. And don't think of Spiral Wave as a vicious circle- think of it more like a round of applause!”

Diabound materialized out of thin air, the powerful ka hovering over the thief and keeping the beast in check.

Tears of pride were flowing down Sati’s cheeks. “That's my son,” she whispered vehemently. She sniffled, then sucked in a deep breath and roared, “ _That's my son!_ ”

Bakura's head snapped instinctively toward her yell, and his face scrunched up in confusion at the sight of an ordinary human woman in the hall of the gods. He turned his gaze back to Anubis, then did a double-take, eyes wide. “…Mom?”

“Bakura!” she cried, and Hamadi took the incomplete soul in his wife's hands so she could burst away from the crowd, sprinting toward the final piece of her son.

Despite his earlier grace, the thief nearly fell off the ram in his hurry to get down onto the floor. He took a few steps forward, then opened his arms, crushing his mother in a strong embrace even as she almost bowled him over.

“Mom…” She felt a lot smaller in his arms that when he had been a child, though she was still half a head taller than he was. “I'm so happy to see you…”

“Hi Sohapitu Seeyu, I'm Dad!” was Hamadi’s only warning before wrapping his son and wife into a giant bear hug. They all laughed between tears, and Bakura moved his arms so he could hug both of his parents close.

“It's been so long… I can't believe you're alright!”

“No, we're not all right, we're half left!” Hamadi wheezed with laughter and Sati elbowed him playfully.

Bakura, still embracing his parents, turned to look at the crowd of villagers. Before his gaze, they lost their mournful-ghost shapes and returned to their true glory as akhu, glowing with power and joy. An old woman with laugh lines engraved into the earthy skin stepped forward with the bundle of soul Bakura's parents had collected, and she offered it to the thief.

Bakura gave his parents an extra squeeze, then stepped toward his other half. “This is the part of me that was in the Ring, isn't it? Thank you, Grandma.”

She smiled, and they all watched as Bakura drew Diabound back into himself, and then accepted the bundle of light into himself.

The thief briefly glowed white, and then he was back to normal- or, at least, almost. Five new scars adorned his chest, and two more on his left hand showed the entry and exit wounds caused by a resin tower. When he curiously shifted his cloak down to expose his shoulder, there was the self-inflicted scar with which he had sealed his loyalty to the young leader of the Ghouls.

Sati smiled as she looked over her son, knowing that he was whole once more. She set her hands on his shoulders.

“Okay I was uncomfortable with the thought of yelling at that shard of you because it was so worn and sad, but now that you're all whole again- what the _hell_ were you thinking, young man?!” She grappled Bakura into a headlock despite his protests and attempts to break free. “Did you really think selling your soul to a goddamn dragon-dick demon could ever be the right fucking thing to do?!”

“I didn't know he had a dragon dick, I only saw his head- _the top head, Dad!”_

“You mean _the horny one?”_

“Mom, Dad, please have mercy!”

Anubis cleared his throat. “A very touching family reunion, but seeing as young Bakura was just making threats toward the gods, he should perhaps be seeking mercy from us instead.”

Bakura laughed humorlessly. “Hail Sertiu of Anu, I have not been angry without just cause.”

Sati scowled and let go of her son to argue with the god of death before he could respond.

“Like _fuck_ he should be seeking mercy, especially after all the bullshit you've put him through! How can a _child_ resist the lure of a powerful demon, especially after having seen such an atrocity and realizing that he was truly all alone in the world, abandoned even by the gods?! And after that, _all_ of his decisions were colored by that fuckhead, so how can you judge him on those?!”

Hamadi piped up, “Yes, and even possessed by a demon, he didn't have nearly the body count of some other people you've let into Aaru. Like a certain _Akhenaden_.”

All of the villagers made the same thunderous snarl at the mention of his name, and Anubis signed.

“Fine. You've got a point. Ma’at?”

The winged goddess had a bird's beak, but still, it seemed like she smiled.

“Bakura of Kul Elna, the Opener of many mouths who only had his own mouth Opened so recently, you are true of voice. May Osiris make you effective, and give you passage to the Field of Reeds beyond the sky’s embrace.”

Bakura fell to his knees in a mixture of relief and shock as the villagers all cheered and Ammit grumbled unhappily.

Sati and Hamadi swept him up into their arms again and held him tight, even as light transfigured the three of them into akhu.

“...thanks Mom and Dad.”

“It's okay, Bakura. It's finally over.”

Hamadi grinned.

“Oh no, it's even better news than that! It's not over, it's just now beginning! Our new life in the afterlife!”

Sati laughed and broke away from her husband's hug to swing Bakura around in her arms.

“Yes! A new life! With all of our family! A better one than what we could have had in the Egypt we had left! And it's all thanks to our son, our _hero_ , who didn't let time nor space stop him from trying to free us!”

The villagers swarmed around them, cheering and whistling with glee, and together, they all rose into the heavens toward the Field of Reeds.  

 

* * *

 

Bakura returned to the court of the gods almost immediately afterwards.

Anubis tapped his foot impatiently on the ground. “Can we help you, Bakura?”

“Yeah, can I keep Ramses?”

Anubis’ eyebrow rose. “You named the Duat hellbeast?”

“Baaa,” said Ramses.

Anubis looked up at the heavens and sighed. “If you get to keep it, will you stay away from the tribunal room?”

“Deal,” said Bakura, and so he leapt onto Ramses’ back and galloped him up into the heavens.


	2. An akh by any other name

Malik sighed.

It had been another long day at the museum.

Sorting the incoming artefacts wouldn't have been so bad if he had been working with any other type of pieces except the Ancient Egyptian ones. But, of course, his sister's recommendation had mentioned his knowledge of Kemet, and so he was stuck working with objects that could at any moment trigger the minefield of childhood memories Malik had tried so hard to forget.

It took most of his remaining energy just to get the door unlocked, and he dropped his key back into his pocket before pushing the door open.

Bright lights and a jumble of colors assaulted him. Malik frowned and rubbed at his eyes, then stared.

His living room had been replaced with a massive TV studio, full to the rafters with a cheering audience. Two giant neon signs blinked [ CLAP NOW ] at the audience, and several people swung around to point their huge TV cameras at Malik's face.

A middle-aged man in a powder-blue suit stepped forward, a microphone in one hand as he beckoned for Malik to step closer.  
  
“CONGRATULATIONS, you were randomly picked as the FIRST CONTESTANT for our brand-new game show”, and the in-studio audience joined him in his cheer, “WHO'S! THAT! _SUPERNATURAL ENTITY?”_

“It's a game where knowing the difference between ghost and ghoul can earn you one of many fabulous prizes! I'm here as your host, Ken Kennedy, broadcasting LIVE from Malik Ishtar's apartment!”

The man winked, Hollywood-white smile almost blinding.

“So, Malik, are you feeling lucky today?”

Malik shut the door.

Panicked, he fumbled with his keys and locked the door.

He plastered himself against the opposite wall, trying to catch a deep breath in the hallway of his apartment building, eyes glued to the sight of his seemingly innocent front door.

Out here, he couldn't hear the audience, at least not over the beating of his own heart.

He briefly considered leaving the apartment building altogether and spending the night elsewhere, but just the thought of looking for a hotel with a vacancy and then actually driving there on this dreary evening drained him.

After another couple of minutes, he sighed, took a deep breath, and stepped up to his front door. He unlocked it, taking care to make as little noise as possible ( _as if it would make any difference to a screaming audience anyway_ , he thought to himself).

He slid open the door just a crack.

The sliver of wall he could see looked normal, as far as he could tell, and it was quiet.

He let the door drift open, revealing his perfectly mundane living room.

Malik stared dumbly at it for a few moments, and then his neighbor rounded the corner and caught him looking at his own empty flat from across the hallway like a fool.

He laughed awkwardly, waved goodbye to his neighbor and locked himself into his apartment. Malik half-expected the living room to fall away into a TV studio again, but as he crept around his apartment, no such thing happened.

With a tight grip on his messenger bag, Malik did a tense walkthrough of his little apartment. At least it was always bright in there, which soothed his raw nerves a little bit. He found nothing, and that was almost more worrying. On top of his existing mental issues, was he going to start having hallucinations as well?

He shook his head to clear it, then turned on the TV for a little background noise while he went to make a strong cup of the most calming damn tea he could assemble. There was some shampoo commercial on as he turned on his electric kettle and scooped tea leaves into his infuser.

“...lustrous every time! Find it in the beauty aisle!”

After his experience walking in today, Malik figured the universe owed him a treat, so he cut himself a generous slice of _basbousa_ to go with his tea.

“...experience the horsepower… with a low, low interest rate…”

He settled on the little table that served as his dining room, sipping his tea and scrolling through the social media feeds on his phone.

“...long ago in a distant land… I, Bakura, the shape-shifting Master of Darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil…!”

The _basbousa_ was a little stale, but- wait a minute. Malik turned to properly look at the TV.

“...foolish Egyptian pharaoh wielding a magic puzzle stepped forth to oppose me.”

“No fucking way,” breathed Malik.

“Before the final blow was struck, I tore open a portal in time and flung us into the future, where card games are law!”

“Shut the fuck up!” yelled Malik.

“Now the fool- hey, _rude!_ Talk about ruining a guy’s entrance!”

The suspiciously Bakura-shaped shadow on TV blew a raspberry at Malik.

“Are you fucking kidding me? _Bakura?!_ What the hell are you doing here?”

“Just thought I'd pop in and see how you were doing, my ole buddy, my ole pal!”

“Bullshit.” Malik grabbed the remote control and hit the off button.

When that didn't make the spirit disappear, he tried hitting it again, then again once more. While the screen around Bakura would clearly turn on and off, the dark shape of the spirit was still clearly visible either way.

“Malik, turning the TV on and off again isn't going to make me go away,” he clutched at his shadowy chest, “but it _will_ hurt my feelings!”

“Aren't you supposed to be dead?!”

“Well, of course! I was _already_ dead when you met me.”

Malik crossed his arms. “No, I mean that you're supposed to be _double dead_.”

“Oh yeah, definitely.” Bakura waved dismissively. “Got eaten by Ammit and everything.”

“Okay, so then what are you doing _here?”_

“Just as I said- I came to see you!” The spirit's theatrical sigh was almost convincing. “What does a man have to do to see his old partner again without an inquisition, Spanish or otherwise?”

Malik turned away from the TV, picking instead at the _basbousa_.

“Your old partner isn't here anymore, so I guess you can go back to wherever you came from. I've changed a lot since then.”

The shadow cradled his chin in his hands, elbows perched on the bottom edge of the TV.

“Really? What a coincidence- I've changed quite a bit myself!”

Malik turned back to the TV to raise a sardonic eyebrow at Bakura.

“Oh yeah? Did you turn over a new leaf? Are you redeemed now? A good guy?”

The spirit laughed, then grinned fiendishly at Malik. “Perhaps! You wouldn't believe me if I said yes, would you?”

He peered closely at Malik with a slight smirk. “And how about the new you? On the straight and narrow?”

Malik couldn't help but grin at that, crossing his arms and turning up his nose. “More like gay and broad, thank you very much.”

Bakura laughed like a hyena, obviously pleased by Malik's sass. “That's what I like to hear! And what is the great Malik Ishtar, leader of an international criminal syndicate slash cult up to on this fine Thursday evening?”

“ _Ex_ -leader,” Malik corrected with a sigh. “And I was planning on eating dinner, working on my online class, watching a little Netflix, and going to bed. It's not as exciting as world domination, but it's my life now.”

The shadow watched Malik take a moody sip of his tea. “And what are your plans for tomorrow?”

Malik raised an eyebrow at him again. “Tomorrow I'm working. Why do you care?”

“I'd like to join you.”

“...what?”

“I'd like to join you,” repeated the spirit. “I want to see what a day in your life is like.”

“Why?”

The shadow was silent for a moment, and then said, “Because I'm dead. I never had the chance to live a normal life, and I never will. But you have the chance to live the life of your choosing now. You don't have to worry about Millennium Items or destiny any more. I'd like to have a taste of that sort of life, so I'm here.”

Malik studied the shadow on the TV. After a while, he pushed away from the dinner table and moved to crouch in front of the TV.

“What are you?” he asked, and the spirit grinned.

The screen flickered, and the shadow disappeared, replaced with a studio, the TV host wearing an identical grin.

“So, you've decided to play after all,” crowed the host, “Excellent! Let's get started! Paula, will you do the honors?”

Malik scowled at the screen as a woman thanked a variety of sponsors.

“...Globex, Devon Corp and Virtucon, thank you so much for your generous support! And now for the prizes-”

“Bakura, stop it! Will you just give me a straight answer for once?”

The TV host looked directly into his eyes and lifted his microphone to say, “No.”

Malik rolled his eyes. “Will you give me a gay answer?”

A slow grin spread across the host's face. “ _That_ I can do.”

The TV shut off.

Malik stared blankly at his own reflection in the screen for a couple of seconds, then banged the side of the TV as if that would fix it.

It didn't, but a playful whistle drew his attention away from the TV.

A dark-robed figure stood on his table, features completely hidden except for two glowing red eyes and a wicked, toothy grin.

“You want to know what I am,” said Bakura's voice, amused. “But do you even know _who_ I am?”

Malik frowned. “Are you telling me you're _not_ Bakura?”

Bakura laughed, grabbing his cloak and tossing it aside. Slim, pale, and Japanese, he gave Malik a serene smile.

“ _This_ is Bakura. Ryou Bakura. You've met him, sort of.”

His sweet smile twisted into a smirk, round eyes narrowing as two horns of hair rose above his unruly spikes.

“And _this_ is Bakura. Bakura, the spirit of the Ring. You've met him too, sort of.”

With a chuckle, he wrapped himself up in a dark cloak again, mysterious once more.

“And me, I'm also Bakura. Bakura of Kul Elna. You've met me, sort of.”

Malik stared. A memory tickled the back of his mind.

_Bakura of Kul Elna..._

The shadow noticed, and his grin grew wider.

“Oh, you know who I am. I had quite the reputation back in my day. Not that anyone had the guts to write down my name, or even depict my _glorious_ form!”

He stretched his arms up, and the ragged edges of his cloak turned his silhouette into the shadow of a winged demon.

“But if the tombkeepers were to protect the pharaoh from me, they had to know _of_ me.”

Comprehension dawned on Malik. “You're…”

The spirit cackled, delighted. “Yes! Say it! I'm Bakura…”

“...The king of thieves.”

_“BINGO!”_

The thief drew back his hood, revealing a scarred face with piercing grey eyes and a mess of shaggy white hair. His toothy grin was even showier against his dark skin.

Malik studied him in quiet awe. He had certainly heard of the Thief King, the Pharaoh’s mortal enemy, the boogeyman who would happily gobble up any tombkeeper children who stepped out of line.

The thought that he was the same guy who had cheerfully stabbed himself a few years ago in a twisted display of loyalty to Malik was… something that he was still trying to process.

But it fit. Who else could the spirit of the Ring have been, on closer inspection? Who else outside of the Nameless Pharaoh’s inner circle could have known the origin of the Millennium Items? Who else would have lain in wait for millennia to gather them?

Bakura looked absolutely gleeful, as if he could see the gears turning in Malik's head and hear the facts clicking into place.

“So all along, you were really the Thief King Bakura?”

That question made the spirit avoid Malik's eyes for a minute, and he looked toward Malik's bedroom with a hint of red in his complexion.

“Well… sort of. I was what was left of the Thief King Bakura… mixed with a generous serving of Zorc, simmered for a few thousand years at low heat.”

He shifted under his cloak, clearly embarrassed by that faux pas, then he waved the memories away, turning back toward Malik.

“But anyways, I'm better now. And I think you're finally ready to guess what I am!”

Malik hesitated. Bakura grinned again.

“Malik Ishtar, you have one final shot at the grand prize. Are you ready?”

Malik rolled his eyes. “Really?” He pretended to hold a microphone up to his face, his expression unenthused. “Can I get a hint? Maybe you can use the word in a sentence?”

Bakura snickered, then leaned in toward Malik. “Perhaps I _can_ give you a clue. But just one! Pay close attention…”

Malik watched, perplexed and a little concerned, as Bakura lifted up the edge of his robes. Was he seriously going to strip on Malik's dining room table?

A bare leg slipped out of Bakura's robes, which might have been scandalous if it hadn't been… a _bird's_ leg.

Bakura was grinning expectantly, turning his thin, scaled leg this way and that in a mockery of seduction.

Malik's eyebrows were bunched up as he tried to puzzle out what the hell Bakura was trying to say in his roundabout way.

A bird leg? With a human body? Was he some sort of weird one-legged demon?

He looked again. No, not necessarily a human body, since most of Bakura's form was covered with a cloak. A human head and a bird leg…

Malik gasped. “An akh?!”

Bakura's face lit up. “Yes, _exactly!_ You WIN!”

All at once, Malik was back in the stage of the TV studio, thick glittery confetti raining from above and pyrotechnics sending bursts of colored sparks into the air as the crowd cheered his name.

Malik ignored most of the illusion, his gaze seeking Bakura's form but unable to find it.

The TV host waved at him from his stand.

“Malik Ishtar, as the new reigning champion of Who's That Supernatural Entity, why don't you take a peek at the grand prize?”

He gestured at a row of large silver doors labeled #1, #2, and #3. “Stella, can you show the champion what's behind Door #1?”

Malik heaved a heavy sigh. “Really?”

The TV host lifted his microphone. “Yes, really!”

Malik rolled his eyes and turned to watch as a model in enormous high heels opened the first door, and the stage musicians played a celebratory riff.

A figure stepped out from the shadows of the vault. It was the Bakura he had known, with long spikes of bone-white hair and a fiendish smile, spreading his arms out as of to welcome Malik. His black trench coat shifted behind him, despite the lack of wind.

All of a sudden, Malik realized that Bakura wasn't wearing a trench coat- it was a pair of giant leathery wings wrapped around the spirit. Curved, ivory horns had camouflaged against his hair, a black, spiked tail curled at Bakura's feet, the tips of his fingers had razor-sharp claws, and his eyes glowed red in the darkness.

Something tightened in Malik's belly at the sight of him.

The model closed the door, locking Bakura away and moving to Door #2.

“Hey-” protested Malik, “What are you doing?”

“And now let's see what's behind Door #2! Stella, will you do the honors?”

The second door swung open, but instead of being covered in darkness, this vault was full of light.

A white silhouette moved closer to the vault entrance. Massive, swan-white wings unfurled, revealing a powerfully-built creature with the upper body of a man with an immense snake as its lower half. The ka glowed, scales and feathers shimmering in the light.

It was the ka that had rivaled the gods, realized Malik.

Its gaze met Malik's, and its stoic expression melted into a little smile. Malik stepped forward in complete awe.

The model closed the door, locking the ka away and moving to Door #3.

“Hey, what the hell-” started Malik.

“Thank you, Stella! And now for Door #3, let's see what's inside!”

Malik shot an annoyed glare at the TV host, but turned his attention to the final door.

Inside the third vault was a man atop a horse, cloaked in scarlet. He lifted his hood to reveal his face, and the King of Thieves gave Malik a saucy wink. Pale scars littered the thief’s loamy skin, and while the chest under the collection of golden necklaces was muscled, the thief was a lot smaller and thinner that Malik would have ever imagined.

Malik had so many questions for the thief, for that childhood villain that had become his childhood hero. He stepped toward him.

The model closed the door, locking the thief away.

Malik yelled. “What the fuck, Bakura?!”

The TV host chuckled, and the audience cheered.

“Don't worry Malik, you've gotten to the best part of the show! You've correctly identified the supernatural entity, you've seen three peeks at the grand prize, and now, at the end of our runtime, you get your prize! Suzie, let's show our champion what he's won!”

The studio darkened, spotlights shining on the three doors. With some musical fanfare, the doors shook, and then the three slowly started to rise, pulled by chains and lifting toward the ceiling all at once. The fog machines kicked on with a quiet hiss.

Slowly, a figure started to emerge under the rising doors.

Draconic claws tapped lightly at the stage floor, the studio lights reflected off shiny obsidian scales. Sculpted calves covered in swirls of iridescent black and white scales shimmered in the light, and a long, reptilian tail curled next to them, spine lined with dark feathers that reflected blue light. A small white wing emerged from each hip, and two lengths of navy cloth with a white stripe were knotted above each wing to form a shendyt. Above the cloth and above the elbows, scales gave way to skin, his torso and arms an earthy brown and marked with old scars. An enormous pair of white wings growing from his back framed him, and his mischievous smile made his broad nose scrunch and his silvery eyes sparkle with glee.

A pair of smaller wings and hooked horns rose above his messy white halo of hair, and once his form had been totally revealed the akh struck a pose and pretended to shoot Malik with both of his pointer fingers, streams of glitter following his clawtip’s path through the air as he pretended to blow smoke from his finger guns.

Malik stared and stared and stared.

Finally, he said, “Can I exchange this for a cash prize?”

Bakura laughed uproariously, and the illusion of the TV studio melted away.

“You _could_ exchange me for a cash prize, but it would be a rip-off because baby, I'm priceless!”

Bakura struck another pose, and Malik couldn't help but chuckle. The akh seemed pleased by this, and he draped himself onto Malik's couch, beckoning for Malik to sit on the loveseat. Malik did sit, still trying to process everything.

The akh crooked a finger and the plate with the remains of Malik's _basbousa_ on it zoomed toward him. Bakura settled in to watch Malik with a grin crinkling his eyes and scar as he spooned a bite of the dessert into his mouth.

Malik tried to rally his thoughts.

“So you're an akh…”

“Yup.” Bakura popped the plosive, tail flicking lazily.

“And you don't actually look like a bird with a human head.”

“Nope.” Another pop. “I like having arms. And I probably look like some weird mix of Diabound and Zorc and myself because the gods love metaphors.”

He stretched, wings flapping lightly and stirring the air of Malik's apartment. “This form does suit me though. No offense to Ryou, but these are much cooler digs.”

Malik did have to admit to himself that Bakura looked cool, but he didn't have to admit it to Bakura, so he skipped to his next question.

“And so you were the Thief King Bakura who opposed the Nameless Pharaoh, and your ka was Diabound?”

“Correcto.”

“But then you got trapped in the Millennium Ring, merged with Zorc and later possessed Ryou?”

“That's right. Not my best moment, in hindsight.”

“So then how the hell did you manage to balance the Scales and become an akh when you told me earlier that you also got eaten by Ammit?!”

Bakura looked very smug at the question. “I had some help. But I did always say I'd be back, and I keep my promises.”

Malik stared incredulously at his pathetic excuse for an explanation, then sighed.

“And why exactly are you here?”

Bakura set aside the empty plate, sitting up in an attempt to show sincerity. “I’ve already told you. I'm here to see _you_.”

“Bullshit,” Malik repeated. “Tell me the truth.”

Bakura laughed, tail flicking and catching the light. “But it _is_ the truth. After spending a little time in the Field of Reeds with my family, I came back to see how things have been since my latest death. And we _were_ partners, once upon a time. I was curious to see what the leader of the Ghouls might get up to once he was free of the pharaoh’s destiny.”

Malik shifted his gaze onto the ceiling. “I expect you'll be disappointed to hear that I've been an upstanding member of society since you left. I've been going to therapy, taking classes, and working at the museum—all very boring.”

He looked back at Bakura. “And now that you know, you can fly away to the Fields to keep enjoying a heaven you probably conned your way into.”

Bakura's tail kept flicking back and forth.

“I suppose I could… but what's the rush? I'm immortal now. I can do whatever I want.”

He studied Malik. “And I'm curious to see what your life's really like. What kind of work does the great Malik Ishtar do at a museum?”

Malik sighed. “Well, if you saw it for yourself, you'd just be bored out of your mind. I'm not kidding about how mundane I am now.”

“I'd like that. To see what you do. Let me join you at work tomorrow, I want to see a day in your life.”

Malik groaned. “Really?”

“Yes, really! Come on, we've shared a body and now you don't even want to share your shoes so I can walk a mile in them?”

Malik rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, as if imploring a god, any god, to come rescue him.

“Fine, you can come with, as long as promise to behave.”

Bakura perked up, wings spreading open. “Oh, I can behave!”

Malik narrowed his eyes. “Behave _well_.”

Bakura waved away Malik's skepticism. “Of course, of course.”

The akh stood up, stretching his arms out.

“Thanks for the offering! I'll see you tomorrow at the museum.”

“That wasn't an offering, you stole my cake-”

“Details, details. Smell ya later!”

The akh disappeared, leaving Malik's living room empty once more.

“-and you'd better not make any more stupid illusions. ...Damnit, Bakura.”

He half-expected to hear an echo of the thief’s laugh, but it seemed Bakura had really gone this time.

Shaking his head, Malik turned the TV back on with a sigh.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plural of _akh_ is _akhu_ apparently!


	3. In the spirit of it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, [Bittercalypso](https://bittercalypso.tumblr.com/), for this adorable depiction of akh Bakura! 
> 
> Check out their blog for a fun gif version of this image!

 

* * *

 

The alarm beeped a staccato rhythm that shattered the light sleep Malik had finally fallen into. He groaned, having no desire whatsoever to get out of bed and face another shitty day at the museum.

He hit the off button on the alarm, rolling over. Actually, a literally shitty day where he handled coprolites would still be better than dealing with ushabti after ushabti. And now he would have to deal with Bakura there too.

Yesterday still felt surreal, even if Bakura's illusions had been no more immersive than the average Kaiba Corp hologram. Perhaps it was the reappearance of a piece of his past he had never expected to see again.

The corners of his lips twitched upward. Perhaps he shouldn't have been so naïve as to think Bakura was capable of staying dead.

With a sigh, he rolled out of bed and filled the electric kettle before brushing his teeth. By the time he returned to the kitchen, the kettle was whistling, and he set his tea to steep while he reheated _ta’meya_ for breakfast.

He had set out some yogurt dip and was about to grab his tea when he tripped and almost fell, just barely catching himself on the counter.

“Whoops,” said Bakura, his long tail curling closer to his body as he riffled through Malik's fridge.

“It's too early to have to deal with assholes,” grumbled Malik, aiming a kick at where Bakura's tail had been. He added a touch of honey to his tea and took a sip of it while transferring his _ta’meya_ to the table, making sure to avoid tripping hazards this time.

As Malik started eating his breakfast, he idly watched the akh hunt through his fridge. He noticed that Bakura was smaller than he had expected, despite the horns giving the illusion of greater height.

Bakura closed the fridge harder than was necessary, then opened the freezer above it. He was clearly having trouble seeing the items deeper in the ice box, because he clambered up the door of the fridge, clawed feet gripping the sides of the door a couple of feet above the ground and his tail ramrod straight, its tip against the floor to keep him from slipping.

Even with half his torso in the freezer, Bakura couldn't seem to find whatever he was looking for.

“Do you seriously not have any decent food in this house?”

“Clearly _I_ think I do,” said Malik dryly, dipping another _ta’meya_ into his yogurt.

Bakura emerged from the freezer to stick a forked tongue out at Malik, then he noticed what Malik was eating. He shut the freezer door and hopped onto the chair opposite Malik, leaning over the table like a gargoyle to take a delicate sniff of Malik's food.

“That looks fried, so it's got to be good.”

“It is, on both accounts.”

“You should give me some. I'm a guest!”

“No, you're a _pest_. We agreed to meet at the museum, not here. Besides, if you're dead, you don't need food.”

Bakura shook his head with a disappointed _tsk, tsk_. “You know that akh have to eat like everyone else.”

“Paint yourself a burger.”

“You're a terrible host, Malik.”

“And you're a terrible ghost.” He would have kept rebuffing Bakura, but it was almost time to head to the museum. He made sure to look Bakura directly in the eye while eating his last _ta’meya_ , just to spite him.

Bakura did his best to look heartbroken, his lower lip wobbling as crocodile tears filled his eyes and his wings drooped listlessly.

Malik rolled his eyes and pointed at the fridge.

“There are more of these in there, heat them in the toaster oven at 200°C for five minutes.”

Bakura immediately perked up, fetching the tupperware from the fridge. He tossed a _ta’meya_ in the air, breathing fire to roast it before it tumbled into his mouth. Bakura munched delightedly, giving Malik a thumbs-up and a muffled “Thanks”.

Malik stared, then looked up at the heavens for strength, but the gods must have been all out of deal-with-Bakura energy, because none was forthcoming. He retreated to his bedroom to finish getting ready for his workday.

Once he was as ready to face the day as he could be, Malik stepped out of his bedroom. He found Bakura hunting through the media cabinet, his long tail swishing back and forth.

Did Bakura return to Earth just to be a busybody and go through Malik's belongings?

Did _Isis_ send him?

Nah, Malik thought. While Isis _was_ definitely Machiavellian enough to spy on Malik to ensure his well-being, she would be leery of accidentally encouraging Malik to return to his criminal ways.

Something in the cabinet set the akh’s hip wings aflutter, and Bakura’s head popped out to grin at Malik. “You've got Pokémon Snap? This game is the shit!”

“Is it?” Malik tried to remember playing the game, but his early years out of the tomb had been a chaotic mess of excitement and overstimulation, both good and bad. He had almost lost his mind when he found out about video games, just as he had almost lost his mind over light switches, cinema, microwaves, and hot showers.

Malik shook away the memories. “Well, if it's such a good game, then you should stay here and play while I go to work.”

Bakura laughed, wagging his finger at Malik like the Dark Magician. “Nuh-uh! You're not getting rid of me _that_ easy!” He withdrew from the cabinet and shut it, then gestured toward Malik's front door. “After you.”

Malik shrugged. “I'd offer you a ride, but I don't have any motorcycle helmets that could fit over your horns.”

“That's right, no matter how horny you are, you should always use protection,” he snickered. “But don't worry about me this time. I can fly!” He spread out his massive white wings to demonstrate, knocking into the TV and pretending he didn't notice the TV was now angled toward the kitchen instead of the couch.

“Great,” said Malik, unimpressed. “Can you make yourself invisible?”

“Sure can!” Bakura cheerfully popped out of sight.

“How about inaudible?”

“Where would be the fun in that?” Bakura popped back into sight, tail sweeping lightly from side to side.

“Of course, that would be too easy. Well then, Bakura, I'm off to work. I guess I won't see you there.”

Bakura's eyes glittered in a way that Malik immediately distrusted. “That's right! Until next time…”

He vanished, and Malik shook his head as he grabbed his motorcycle helmet.

He really should be more worried about whatever Bakura was _really_ planning to do at the museum, particularly since the last time Bakura was in there he had almost managed to destroy the world. But if Malik was honest with himself, he really could use a distraction from his work, and whenever Bakura was around, life could never be ordinary.

 

* * *

 

The ride to the museum was uneventful, even though Malik half-expected to find Bakura perched on every stop light.

He parked in the employee lot and climbed the stone staircase. He was surprised to see Isis ahead of him, then remembered that she was supposed to be performing the final checks on a revamped exhibit today. In all of the… excitement (?) of Bakura's appearance, he had managed to forget.

Seeing his sister inspired mixed feelings in Malik, as usual. On one hand, he did genuinely love his sister, and he enjoyed spending time with her. But on the other, it was hard to separate the thought of her from all of the negative associations he'd built up at the museum, particularly since it was her fault he had a job _there_ and not anywhere else.

Well, not her _fault_ … She had been doing the right thing in helping Malik get started on his new life, and he shouldn't be blaming her just because the job turned out to be a terrible match for him _personally_.

Isis turned as if she had heard her name spoken aloud, eyes searching the stone steps below her until she spotted Malik. Her expression brightened, and she waved a cheery hello. Malik waved back with a smile, then quickened his pace.

“Sabah alkhyr 'ukhti”, Malik greeted once he reached her.

She smiled at Malik. “Good morning, Brother.” She turned to smile at someone behind Malik. “And good morning to you too!”

Malik turned and almost bumped into the taller man standing right behind him. The man grinned, white teeth standing out against his bark-brown skin, his grey eyes framed by dark curls. He wore khakis and a casual button-up, and he only bore a faint resemblance to Bakura, but Malik knew without a shadow of doubt that he was Bakura.

“Good morning,” said the disguised Bakura, and when he moved like he was going to shake hands with Isis, Malik widened his eyes at him and shot him a warning look. Bakura paid him no heed, shaking Isis’s hand with a smile.

“It's nice to meet you! Are you Malik's sister? I'm Oscar!”

When Bakura's hand touched hers, Isis’ eyelid twitched, as if a mosquito had just buzzed in her ear. She otherwise gave no sign of having suspected “Oscar’s” true identity and Malik admired her skilled poker face.

“Oscar, it's a pleasure to meet you. What brings you here today to the Domino Museum?”

Malik turned toward Bakura as well, wondering what sort of story the akh had concocted.

“Oscar” smiled. “I'm Malik's classmate. I mentioned in the class forum that I was curious about what working in a museum would be like, and Malik kindly volunteered to let me shadow him for the day!”

Malik bristled at the word “shadow”, but Isis looked pleased by the explanation, so Malik quickly smiled before she could shift her gaze toward him.

“Malik, why didn't you tell me earlier? I could have arranged to give him a tour of the facility!”

It was Malik's turn to act now. “Ah, sorry Sister, it honestly slipped my mind that you would be in town today. But don't worry, I'll make sure to show Oscar around after my shift.”

“Great! Now, I'll try to sneak by to say hi to you boys later, but my agenda today is tight, so perhaps we'll meet again another time. Have fun!”

With that, Isis gave them another cheerful wave and continued up the steps and into the museum.

Malik waited to give Isis a head start, then continued into the building himself, fuming slightly but making sure to keep a smile on his face as he headed to the staff area hidden beyond the exhibits. He could hear Bakura ambling along behind him, humming obnoxiously. Malik opened the door to the temporary storage room with a little more force than really necessary.

As soon as he had closed the door behind them, Malik whirled to face “Oscar”. Bakura had his hands in his pockets and an easy grin, precisely because he knew it would get Malik's goat.

“Are you kidding me,” started Malik, “you showed up in front of _Isis_ , who you know is kind of a fucking psychic?”

Bakura held up his hands in playful self-defense. “Hey, I won't judge her for being one type of psychic or another. And it worked, didn't it? We're in, and she's none the wiser.” He winked. “And besides, you're not seeing me here after all, just as I'd promised. You're technically seeing a younger version of my dad. An AU version, I suppose.”

Malik scowled. “You may be technically right, but you're _actually_ just getting on my nerves.”

Bakura cackled. “It's multitasking, babe!” He looked around the room with interest, shifting back into his true form and shaking out his wings. “Let's get started! I can't wait to see what kinds of treasures you'll try to dissuade me from stealing today!”

With a bitter laugh, Malik strode toward the rows upon rows of crates that awaited him.

“Oh, believe me, I'd absolutely love it if you could just steal all this junk away. But of course, you just _had_ to introduce yourself, so if anything disappeared today all the fingers would be pointed at me.”

He hauled the first crate off the floor and moved it to the examination area, dropping it onto the table almost carelessly. Malik's first attempt at getting the top off the crate was unsuccessful, but when he got his crowbar into position, his short and vicious shove popped the top right off.

Bakura only watched, silent, his tail curling closer to his body.

“Let me guess,” hissed Malik, glaring at the foam protecting the box’s contents. “Another fucking ushabti.”

He knocked the box onto its side, making packing peanuts and newspaper-covered items roll across the table. He shooed the peanuts off the artifacts apathetically, lining up the cylindrical bundles with a sneer.

“Of course. Ushabti, ushabti, ushabti.” He added a sarcastic coo of delight upon spotting a flatter artifact. “Oooh, a _scarab_.”

Bakura only watched, silent, his wings drooping.

Malik got to work wrestling the artifacts out of their tape, newspaper, and plastic wrap cocoons, alternating between a box cutter, a pair of large scissors and his bare hands as he cursed. Each ushabti he freed made him grit his teeth a little harder.

It was the scarab though, round with large outstretched wings, that gave Malik pause. He stared at it, and stared at it, and there was a slight tremble in his hands.

Its shape bore too close a resemblance to the scars carved between Malik's shoulder blades.

Bakura couldn't watch him any longer.

He took three long strides to reach Malik's side, and swept the scarab out of Malik's line of vision with his tail, opening his wings in front of Malik and using them to push him away from the examination table.

“It's my turn to try, this looks easy enough. Go sit in the beanbag chair, you look like you barely got any sleep last night!”

That seemed to snap Malik out of his trance, and he tried to push past Bakura's wing to get to the table again.

“Hey, I've still got to classify those-”

Bakura's wing swung backwards, pushing Malik bodily away from the table.

“Yeah yeah, you can classify them after I get them uncovered for you. Relax.”

Malik kept trying to reach the table for a couple of moments longer, until it dawned on him that he didn't actually want to do the work in the first place and that if Bakura messed up he could always blame it on “Oscar”.

He pulled away from Bakura then. “Sure, whatever. Have fun.”

Bakura only pointed to what had previously been an empty corner but now featured a giant purple bean bag chair.

Malik slunk over to it, gave it a light kick to make sure it wasn't an illusion, then flopped onto it with a sigh. He sunk into its cloud-soft embrace and felt the tension in his body start to ebb slowly away.

Once he felt more like just watching the museum burn instead of being the one with a flamethrower getting it started, he turned his head to the side to look at Bakura. The akh had already worked his way through a big stack of crates, and crowds of ushabti and scarabs had been sorted by condition, material, and color.

Bakura finished placing the latest batch of artifacts into their appropriate groups, then waved at the remaining crates behind him. The next box obediently zoomed across the floor to sit next to Bakura's feet, and the akh’s tail easily wedged the top open. A wrapped artifact flew up and out of the protective foam and into Bakura's waiting hand. The akh then easily freed it by drawing a sharp claw along its surface.

Once he had gone through the contents of the crate, the packing peanuts would float up and into the bin, while the crate collapsed itself into a flat, space-saving form and stacked up with the other empty boxes.

The ease and fluidity with which he worked made Bakura relaxing to watch, and Malik felt something like peace settle into his bones for the first time since he had started working in the museum. With every crate Bakura emptied, Malik's eyelids drooped a little lower and his breaths slowed just a touch, until he was sound asleep.

 

* * *

 

It took Malik a while to wake up since he was nestled on a luxuriously soft beanbag and under a fantastically warm blanket. He yawned and stretched, then remembered that he was at the museum and that he was supposed to be working, not napping. He turned toward the examination table and recoiled.

There was someone working there, and he looked exactly like Malik.

He clasped his hands onto his own shoulders to check that he was still solid and breathed a sigh of relief when he realized that the other Malik was one of Bakura's illusions and not actually The Other Malik.

There was also an “Oscar” next to “Malik”, cementing the illusion of Malik working his shift if anyone were to come in through the door. There were still tons of crates left to unpack; this latest shipment would probably take Malik the rest of the month to finish unwrapping and sorting everything.

Malik reluctantly pulled off the blanket covering him and stood up—it must have been Bakura that had placed it on him in the first place. He noticed the akh was a few feet away, curled up on top of his own bean bag, a black and white wreath of feathers and hair and scales against the blue fabric.

Malik's gaze must have been heavy enough to feel, because the akh stirred after a moment of it, uncoiling and stretching out his many limbs.

It was kind of cute, and Malik grinned. “I didn't know akh needed sleep.”

Bakura scratched lazily at his belly, yawning and revealing a pair of slightly pointed canines.

“I always used to say ‘I'll sleep when I'm dead.’ It's about time I started catching up on my ZZZs.” He stood, and the bean bags vanished. “Actually, for me to be an _effective one_ down here, I need food and sleep just like you do. Being a star in the sky is the only free action.”

The mention of food made Malik's stomach rumble obnoxiously loud. He flushed, and crossed his arms over his belly. “Speaking of food…”

He glanced at the clock, eyes widening when he realized his shift was almost over.

“Holy shit! It's four o'clock already? Why didn't you wake me up earlier?”

Bakura was rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Did it really take him that long to wake up in the mornings?

“You looked like you needed it. Besides, the last time we tried working together, we ended up getting ripped to shreds by a giant robot chicken.”

Malik winced at the memory. “Yeah, I guess you do have a point.”

“And besides, it didn't take me very long to get through the work. You usually do about five or six crates a day, right?”

“Yup,” said Malik, looking at all of the boxes he had left. “I don't normally have this many boxes here, but we got in an insane shipment from Germany as part of a trade. I'm usually fixing up exhibits, helping visiting scholars, and doing school tours.”

Bakura lifted his head to look Malik in the eye, grey irises glowing slightly. “Do you like it here? Do you enjoy your job?”

Malik's shoulders slumped. “You already know I don't. I mean, I think I would like it so much better here if I could work in _any other_ section of the museum. The natural history side is pretty cool, and hell, I wouldn't even mind working with literally any other ancient civilization.”

“But you're sick to death of Egypt, aren't you?”

“Bingo.” Malik sighed, looking around one more time before starting toward the door. “Your prize is a smoothie.”

“Malik.”

He paused, turning to look at Bakura, who still stood next to where the bean bags had been.

“Take another look,” said the akh, tail swaying from side to side.

“At what…?” Malik looked around again and froze.

The room was empty.

The crates were all gone.

No, they weren't all gone—they were all collapsed in a huge stack next to the table, and on the floor were several square meters full of artifacts, each painstakingly sorted and labeled.

“Bakura… Did you really…?!”

He grinned, wings fluffing up as he tossed his head.

“Yeah, I did. You won my little guessing game earlier, so I figured that if I was going to act like Rumpelstiltskin that I'd might as well complete the act. Anyways, this room is spelled so it'll look like you're working at a decent pace in here.”

He waved his hand and the crates reappeared, the artifacts on the floor greatly reduced in number.

“So you won't actually need to do anything. And I expect that you'll use your sudden bout of free time to find some other job you hate less. Particularly a job with less old Egyptian shit.”

Malik was still staring at the crates in disbelief. “Bakura, you really…!”

Gratitude surged through him then, and in a rush, he sprinted up to Bakura and swept him up in a tight hug. “Thank you so damn much, I really fucking hate this job!!”

Bakura got his breath knocked out of him, not by the force of the hug, but by the force of Malik's joy, which hit him like a truck. He felt himself flush, but luckily Malik couldn't see it.

“Yeah, umm, you can put me down as a job reference, since we technically worked together.” Bakura’s hip wings fluttered, brushing against Malik's legs and reminding Malik that he was actually hugging the thief.

Malik set Bakura down after a few more moments, a little flushed himself, but grinning. He looked away at the door, though he couldn't help but notice that Bakura’s wings were so white they almost glowed, even under the bright lights of the storage room.

“Oh?” he said, sneaking a glance back at Bakura. “And what would you say if someone actually called to ask for your recommendation?”

Bakura shot him a playful pair of finger guns. “I'd say that you are a true thought leader, excellent at (criminal) organization and an expert at working the (black) market.”

Malik laughed at that, imagining Bakura trying to keep a straight face while skirting around Malik's previous career.

“Fair enough! Well, let's go. I did promise you that smoothie after all. You've definitely more than earned it today.”

A shy grin spread across Bakura's face as he stepped up to Malik's side.

“Yeah, I'll be happy to accept that food offering, as long as it doesn't have anything nasty like vegetables in it.”

Malik grinned down at him and Bakura's _ib_ almost stopped.

“You're in luck, Bakura. My favorite smoothie place is called ‘Kale Kingdom’.”

“Fuck.”

 


	4. I believe akh can fly

On their way out of the museum, Malik and “Oscar” bumped into Isis again. She was clearly rushing to her next commitment, but she stopped to suggest that Malik and Oscar return after the museum's closing time so that Malik could give him a proper tour of the facilities.

The way Isis had discretely raised her eyebrows at Malik while saying so made him want to duck down the nearest corridor to hide. Clearly she was **trying** to wingman Malik into a friendship, but all she was doing was mortifying him in front of Bakura, who would definitely be thinking Isis was trying to prompt a _different_ kind of relationship and who was probably going to double die from laughter the instant she was out of earshot.

Instead, “Oscar” merely mimicked Isis’ voice in a falsetto, “ _Why don't you visit the museum again after dark, boys?”_ Then he grumbled, “Did your sister think we were headed to _Lettuce_ Kingdom?”

Malik turned to Bakura, puzzled. “Lettuce Kingdom? What makes you say that?”

Bakura paused, surprised, then he looked away. “Uhhh, lettuce because… I meant _Lettuce go!_ I'm hungry!”

Malik shot him another confused look, but didn't question him any further on the subject as they reached his bike.

“Oh yeah. Bakura, I still don't have a helmet for you. I guess you can put on a fake illusion helmet?”

“Don't worry, I'm naturally hard-headed.” Bakura looked at the bike, then at Malik, back at the bike, and then at the sky. “Actually, it's a nice day today. I think I'll go for a flight and meet you there.”

“Do you know where I'm headed?”

“Oscar” grinned, form shifting back into Bakura's more familiar shape, broad wings spreading wide.

“Malik, I could recognize your aura from halfway across the globe. I'll find you.” With that, he leapt into the air, the wind from his downstroke blowing Malik's hair into disarray.

By the time, Malik had swept his bangs away from his eyes, the akh was up high enough to appear almost like an ordinary bird, albeit a large one, circling lazily. Malik watched the akh lift even further upwards on a thermal for a few moments, then turned to his motorbike, strapping on his helmet.

If Bakura was going to fly, then Malik thought he might as well take the scenic route to the other Kale Kingdom in the neighboring city.

He strapped on his helmet, maneuvered out of the parking lot, then took off onto the highway, letting the roar and rumble of his engine chase away his thoughts. It was a sort of meditation, an emptying of the mind in favor of living in the moment. He watched the pattern of traffic ripple around him, and he slipped through the gaps with practiced ease, weaving his way to the front of the herd.

It was smooth sailing from there, and his sight turned to the sky, awash in warm colors as the sun began to set. There was a glimmer of white at the corner of his eye and then the akh soared into view, his wings outstretched. Bakura stuck his arms out like Superman and tilted his wings, performing a graceful aerial barrel roll to avoid crashing into a billboard. The akh easily maneuvered around the varied rooftops of the city, matching Malik's speed and direction without apparently paying him any attention.

The road turned into a bridge crossing over a river. Bakura tucked in his wings and dove into the water, emerging moments later with a wiggling fish in his hands. The river slipped away too quickly as Malik rode and he only caught the beginnings of a laugh from the akh before he was swept out of sight.

All too soon, the downtown area started looming in the horizon. Bakura caught up with Malik again, glittering drops of water still streaming from his wings and hair, but now Malik was forced to turn his attention back to the traffic ahead.

After slogging through downtown traffic for ten minutes, Malik parked just outside Kale Kingdom. By the time he had taken off his helmet, Bakura was there too, lounging on top of the car in the next spot and grinning at Malik.

“That was fun! Did you see that giant fish I caught? An absolute **unit!** ”

Malik couldn't help but smile as he took off his helmet and dismounted. “Yeah, I sure saw it, you show-off. Did it taste good?”

“Hey, just because I like my steak rare it doesn't mean I'm into biting chunks out of fish with the scales still on! I tossed it back in the water.” He shook himself like a wet dog to dislodge some of the water still clinging to him. “Besides, I'm an akh, so food that hasn't been offered to me won't do me any good. Which is why I'm definitely ready for a snack, even if it has,” and he shuddered, “ _vegetables_ in it.”

Malik laughed at Bakura and held open the café door for him. “Ah, so if I offer you a knuckle sandwich, that will fill you up?”

“Do you mean a fruit punch? I _am_ a little thirsty…”

Malik rolled his eyes and they joined the line. He ordered something with grass in it and Bakura carefully picked out the least healthy-sounding drink on the menu. They settled into a small booth in the corner of the restaurant, facing each other over the table.

The café thrummed with chatter and music and the muted roar of industrial-grade blenders. It was too loud for Bakura's taste, so he waved his hand and wrapped themselves and their table in a translucent gold bubble of heka. Immediately, the ambient noise level dropped to a hum. Bakura traced a finger along the inside surface of the bubble for a moment, trailing white sparks, as he hid them from the notice of the other patrons.

Malik watched with interest as Bakura worked his magic, then reached out curiously to touch the heka bubble. Lavender flames erupted where his skin met the magic, licking harmlessly at his fingertips and the protective bubble. When Malik lowered his hand, he left little purple fingerprints on the bubble, and the air inside it felt a little cozier somehow.

The resultant mix of their magic brought a little smile to Bakura's face. “You don't have as much control over your heka without the focus of the Rod, do you? You have a naturally strong ka, hard to contain.”

Malik shrugged. “As tombkeepers, we were expected to upkeep the original spells with our own power, not create anything new. Isis studied and learned how to perform some small spells herself. I had been too busy, figuring out the Rod and seeking revenge, to bother with Ancient Egyptian party tricks. As you can guess, after it all fell apart I didn't really think it was a great idea to start messing about with new magic.”

“Fair enough.” Bakura took a big sip of his smoothie.

“Oh, didn't you need me to do a special offertory chant over that so you can drink it?”

Bakura snorted. “That potion you got has enough herbs and spices in it that just talking over it probably counts as a ritual.”

He took another sip, then sighed. “By the way, Malik, how did you end up working at the museum? I didn't expect that of you after all the shit went down.”

Malik's gaze lowered to the table, and he fiddled with his straw. “Me neither. But I'd never gone to school, so finding any kind of decent job was almost impossible. Isis convinced the higher-ups at the museum that she needed more staff, and helped me land the job.”

Malik shook his smoothie a few times to stir it. “I've got a high school diploma now, but even with that, most of the jobs out there I could get would mean dealing with the public or cleaning. I'm working on getting a university degree so I can get a job I like better.”

“Somewhere far away from any museums, right?”

With a sigh, Malik slumped forward, moving his shoulders away from the back of the chair. “I don't even hate the museum in general. Just the Egyptian stuff, which I've had to deal with way too damn much.”

“Big fucking mood,” muttered Bakura, his feathers fluffing up irritably before resettling. “What are you studying?”

“I'm still taking general courses. I'm not really sure what I want to do. I'm hoping I'll figure it out by the time I have to choose a major.”

“That sounds… very boring.” Bakura pretended to yawn. “What do you do for _fun?”_

“I mostly just… stay at home, watch TV, work out, look at social media… You know.” Malik fidgeted, glancing up at Bakura.

“Hmm. Nope, actually, I **don't** know. That sounds way too mundane to be the Malik I used to know.” He peered into Malik's eyes as if trying to read the truth in them. “What happened to the adventure, to the intrigue? You have a _yacht_ , Malik, why aren't you cruising the world?”

Malik's gaze fixed onto the table. “I don't have the yacht anymore. I didn't keep any of the stuff I stole with the Ghouls. I told you - I'm different now. I'm trying to be a good person.”

Bakura analyzed the way Malik slumped and avoided his gaze, taking several deep draughts from his smoothie before setting it down. He placed his scaled elbows onto the table and rested his head in his clawed hands, still gazing at Malik.

“Which part of what you're doing makes you ‘good’?”

“What?”

“You heard me. You're going through the paces of what you think makes a ‘normal’ life, but how is that ‘good’?”

Malik scowled. “Oh, so should I go back to the cult-leading mafia boss lifestyle? Is executing henchmen the new wellness trend?”

Bakura laughed. “It sure beats yoga, doesn't it? But really, if _you're_ not enjoying your new life, then who is it good for?”

“What are you talking about?! I _do_ enjoy my life-”

“Like hell you do. When was the last time you took time off from the job you hate to do something you enjoy?”

Malik said nothing.

“Do you know what I think?” The akh took another sip of his smoothie, which soon ran out, and then he slurped up what little remained with an obnoxious bubbling noise. “I think you're just punishing yourself. And that doesn't do anyone any good, least of all yourself.”

“What...? No. You're wrong! I've been helping my sister-”

“Yeah, you've been trying to make up for your bad behavior by doing work you hate so much that it's causing you to have mental breakdowns, which will soon become obvious to her, thereby causing much more worry and distress than if she had just hired someone else. Next excuse?”

“I… I…” Malik sighed. “…I'm not using people like toys anymore.”

Bakura's tail swished from side to side, and he let out an impressive burp. “I guess that _is_ a step in the right direction. But not actively being a douchebag doesn't mean you're being a good person.”

“Oh yeah?” A flare of Malik's old rage ignited as he finally looked Bakura in the eye. “Then tell me, Mr. Goody Two-Shoes, what would **you** suggest I do?”

His wings tucked in close and his tail settled onto the floor as Bakura's lips turned up in a small smile. “You should do the best thing any mortal _can_ do: try to be happy and try to make others happy. If you truly enjoyed your new life, your sister—and hell, even Baldy—would be delighted.”

Malik blinked. “I don't know what I expected you to say, but it wasn't _that_. Clearly you're not the thief I used to know either.”

“Yeah. How long has it been since my Shadow RPG?”

“Uhh, about… eight years? It's been a while.”

“Really, it's been that long?” Bakura chuckled. “Time _does_ fly when you're having fun. I spent a week or so traversing the Duat, but I've spent the rest of my time with my family in Aaru.”

Malik's eyes widened and he leaned in. “Really?! The Field of Reeds? Your family was there?”

“Yes. The gods were going to judge them individually, until the villagers reminded them of some of the bullshit they'd let slide because they were too lazy to do their damned jobs as deities. They're all akhu now, and they're happy. It only took me a few thousand years to make sure of it.”

“Sounds about right for the gods, to be honest.” Malik took a long sip. “So, what's it like? Aaru.”

Bakura sighed, looking up to the heavens. An impression of people playing at a riverbank swirled along the bubble's surface. “In many ways- it's… it's what our lives _should've_ been like. Farming, building, hunting, dancing. If you don't work, you won't have any bread, but the floods always leave the soils rich and there is never famine or disease. And as much work as it is to farm, there's always plenty of time to share with your family. It's… nice.”

“Do you miss it?” Malik turned his gaze from the shifting colors to Bakura's face. “…Do you miss them?”

“I've only been back to earth today but yeah, I miss them a little already.” Bakura's smile widened. “They insisted, you know. They almost kicked me out of Aaru. ‘Go back to earth for a while,’ they told me. They even handed over their effectiveness, y'know, their ability to make things happen on Earth. Said I was the only one with any interest in or connection to the modern world, and that I ought to have it.”

He looked upwards again. “I guess… I guess it was their way of saying thanks. Not that I really managed to do a whole lot to help them, but I sure fucking tried, and no one knew that better than they did.”

The unmasked love in Bakura's tone brought a smile to Malik's lips. “That's sweet of them.” His smile curled into a grin. “Though perhaps they had just gotten sick of your bad jokes and wanted a break.”

Bakura laughed out loud at the suggestion. “If you think **I'm** bad, you should meet my dad! He got thrown out of Ancient Egyptian Harvard for joking around. In fact, I'm sure Ammit would have refused to eat him, purely because he _tastes funny_.”

Malik rolled his eyes, smiling, as Bakura snickered, his tail waving in delight. After Bakura calmed down, he turned his eyes upwards again.

“My dad always says that the best revenge is living a happy and awesome life so that those who did you wrong can die mad about it. My mom always counters that the best revenge is turning someone into a joke.” He grinned. “Dad counters that being a joke still preserves the _ren_ , and I sure as hell don't intend to preserve the _ren_ of any of the pharaoh's court. But I do fully intend to have a good time exploring all of the world I never got to see, and maybe doing some magic where I can to make it a little bit better.”

The akh tapped the bottom of his empty smoothie cup against the table, looking at it pensively, then he looked up at Malik again.

“It would make me even happier if you enjoyed this second chance at life too. We weren't the best of partners in Battle City, and you certainly didn't have my best interests in mind, but it was nice, for once, to have someone else in my corner.”

He paused for a second. “For what it’s worth, I liked working with you, even while everything was filtered through Zorc-vision. It'd be a damn shame if you spent your whole life full of rage and sadness… like I did.”

Malik's gaze slid back down to the table. “I never did say thank you for everything you did for me in Battle City, did I?”

Bakura waved the thought away. “No need, I just-”

“ _Yes_ , there _is_ a need.” Malik was looking him straight in the eye, and Bakura's wings twitched in surprise. “You lent me your host, won your way to the finals, saved my brother's life, and put your vengeance on the line to save me from myself even without the promise of a reward.”

Bakura's head-wings tried to hide the soft blush on his cheeks, and the akh's gaze shifted away from Malik's face. “Heh, when you put it that way, it almost sounds like I was a good guy.”

Malik sighed. “You did all that while possessed by a demon. Despite the fact that doing so had no clear benefit to either of you. I'm fully aware that I'm only alive right now through the efforts of my family and because of your help. My other half almost managed to get rid of me, and he would have never stopped trying to kill and destroy.”

The akh fidgeted a little in his chair, still not used to receiving praise even after his time in Aaru.

Malik continued, “And now, on top of that, you're back again to see whether I've finally started living a good life. Thank you. I know that a couple of words is pretty much nothing in the face of all that you've done for me, but hopefully it's a start.”

Bakura was definitely several shades redder now, and the white swirls in his scales seemed brighter, his feathers noticeably emitting a little light even in the brightly-lit café. A riot of colors swirled around their privacy bubble.

“Malik… I won't say that it was nothing, because I did put everything on the line for you in Battle City. …But I just couldn't say no when you asked for help. Maybe it was because it sounded like a fun distraction from the monotony of the pharaoh's entourage. Maybe it was because your _overwhelming charisma and dominance_ got through to me even while possessed.”

That pulled a laugh out of Malik, and Bakura smiled, his voice softening. “Maybe it was because no one had helped **me** on my quest for justice. And each time you stepped into my mind with the Rod, I sensed more strongly that you had your own family, your own village, that needed saving. How could I say no?”

Malik just looked at him for a few moments, a little smile on his lips, then he stood up, walked around the table, and swept Bakura into a hug. The akh, taken by surprise, hugged back, as he had grown accustomed in his second afterlife. Malik smiled, and gave Bakura an extra squeeze before whispering “Thanks” in his ear and setting him down. It was then that Malik noticed how much shorter the akh was, and that his irises were a beautiful pale grey flecked with tiny bits of blue.

“My pleasure.” Bakura's wings all flapped almost nervously, and his tail swished from side to side.

Malik laughed and ruffled the grey mane around his horns and wings despite Bakura's protests. “Ride back to the museum with me.”

Bakura finger-groomed his hair back into a proper faux-messy style. “Hmm? Why?”

“You want to experience some of the things you never got to do while alive, right? I'll take you for a spin on my bike.”

“You've given me a ride on your bike once already,” he said with a grin, then pointed to his shoulder, which bore the old knife wound. Malik flushed slightly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I guess I have. But this time I'll make sure the experience involves a lot less pain and mind control.”

Bakura snickered. “The old me would have accused you of cutting out all the excitement.”

“And the new me is mortified that I had let you get blood onto Lady Death's paint. Come on, let's head back to the museum. I want to show you a couple of things.”

Bakura's eyes glittered with amusement. “Ushabti?”

“Absolutely not. If I see one more solar disk or side profile tonight, I swear I will smash every bit of pottery in the museum's collection.”

Bakura laughed. “That's the primary coping mechanism in Hyrule.”

Malik shot him a puzzled glance. “What?”

“Ah, clearly you need to add video games to your daily routine. I think you might find the desecration of various temples to be cathartic.”

“Yes, I'm sure video games will make me a better person.”

“Absolutely! You know what gamers say: git gud.”

Malik rolled his eyes, but a little smile played on his lips. “If that's true, then Domino City must have the largest concentration of saints on the planet.”

“We certainly must have the most rituals and sacrifices, at least.”

Bakura opened his primary wings out wide so the tips of his feathers brushed against the sphere of magic that had protected them. The heka melted, absorbing back into the akh in a colorful rush. The ambient noise of the café rose to replace it, and Bakura used his tail to hold open the door for Malik.

“Let's go!”

 


	5. The life and soul of the party, make no bones about it

Riding the motorcycle behind Malik was a lot harder than Bakura had expected. For the first time, being an akh put him at a disadvantage—the rush of air threatened to catch and open his wings, which would slow and unbalance the bike, and his tail had to stick upwards to avoid the back wheel and the exhaust. Each of Malik's turns made Bakura want to instinctively spread out his wings to shift back, and it took real effort to keep them shut tight.

At the first stoplight, Marik turned back towards the akh. “Are you alright? Should we pull over?”

Admitting defeat wasn't something Bakura had ever done in life, and he refused to start now.

“No, I'm fine.” He shuffled a little closer to Malik, mindful of Malik's scarred back as he reduced his second-death grip on Malik's waist. Bakura's clawed feet kept their vice grip on the footrest.

Malik shot him a concerned look, but the light was green and the car behind them honked, so he reluctantly turned back towards the intersection. They took off, though the acceleration was much gentler and they were noticeably slower than the traffic around them.

His nerves eased at the more leisurely pace, and there was a little bloom of gratitude in Bakura's stomach.

At the next red light, Malik slowed to a gentle stop, then rested his gloved hands on top of Bakura's. The akh startled, clutching Malik's waist a little more tightly, then let go, curious of what Malik had on mind. Malik held each of Bakura's hands for a moment, then tugged on his hands until Bakura's arms were wrapped securely around Malik's waist.

Bakura's heart and wings fluttered, and he nestled closer, hugging Malik properly. Malik smiled and patted his arms, then continued their drive. He kept the pace gentle and steady, making sure the akh was still comfortable.

Bakura made sure to keep all of his wings shut even though they wanted to flap with delight, but he had to wrap his tail around his own waist to keep it from swishing around and unbalancing them. He leaned his forehead against Malik's back, mindful that his horns didn't clack against Malik's helmet, and enjoyed the ride.

A few stops later, Malik placed a hand on Bakura's tail, grinning as it twitched in surprise. He maneuvered the akh's tail around his own waist, so that Bakura was securely anchored to him with both his arms and tail. Malik was keeping an eye on the traffic light, so he couldn't see behind him, but the pattern of white scales on Bakura's tail glowed, and the akh snuggled close, tucking his massive white wings under Malik's arms and wrapping them around Malik's chest.

Malik couldn't help but run an awed hand along the edge of Bakura's left wing, wishing for a moment that he didn't have gloves on. The akh glowed, and Malik felt Bakura's soft hum of contentment above the rumble of the engine.

Once the akh was settled comfortably, Malik tested higher speeds. Bakura, wrapped warmly around Malik, didn't seem to mind, and the akh's embrace was _nice_. Even the akh's pressure against Malik's back wasn't bothering him like it normally would, and while Bakura's wings were blocking the wind from hitting Malik's thick motorcycle jacket, he didn't feel overheated, even at their lower speeds.

Once he was certain the akh would be comfortable at high speeds, Malik stopped driving loops around the café and finally took off onto the highway. He should have felt smothered, but Bakura's happy hum and warm embrace while flying down the highway made the experience even more exhilarating.

 

* * *

 

The museum parking lot was quiet and empty.  Crickets sang in the grass and trees surrounding the concrete. Malik slid the bike into the spot closest to the entrance and killed the engine. The warm afternoon breeze tousled Malik's hair once he pulled off his helmet. Bakura ruffled his hair too, grinning at his little vengeance and giving Malik a final squeeze before starting to uncoil himself.

They both took a moment to stretch. Malik couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of Bakura with his tail sticking out ramrod straight and his arms and wings outstretched, taking up way more space than the tiny thief had any right to.

Bakura noticed his laugh and stuck his tongue out playfully at Malik, then grinned. “Hey Malik, do you want to enter the museum the fun way or the boring way?”

That certainly piqued Malik's attention. “There's a fun way?”

“There's a fun way to do almost anything, especially if you have company!” Bakura leaned in conspiratorially and winked. “And of course, today you're accompanied by someone who is not only the legendary King of Thieves, but also the lesser-known Grand Prince of Gaiety!”

Malik laughed again. “Really? Grand Prince of Gaiety?”

“Not to mention my other titles, like Marquis of Merriment and Archduke of Awesome.”

“So humble of you.”

“Grandmaster of Good Times, Wizard of Wow, Dungeon Master Supreme-”

“Yes, I get the idea, Lord of Dorkness.”

Bakura beamed. “How'd you know?”

“Any other titles I should know about?"

“Just one. The Pharaoh's true title is Intergalactic Emperor of Erectile Dysfunction.”

Malik laughed. “I have to agree with you on that one!"

Bakura offered Malik a clawed hand, and Malik took it. The akh grinned and tugged Malik's hand, and Malik stepped closer, curious.

Bakura took a step backwards, and Malik followed, and then another step, and then Bakura turned and ran, laughing as Malik held tight and chased after him. Bakura leapt over a small car and Malik yelled as he jumped wildly, certain he was going to slam into the metal, but he cleared it with ease. It was then that he noticed they were running several feet off the ground. Malik's steps faltered, and he was certain he would fall back to the ground, but Bakura tugged on his hand again with a smug little grin, and off they went again, whooping and running under the moonlight.

“Ready?” yelled Bakura, scales glittering under the stars.

“Hell yeah,” replied Malik, and then they were headed full-tilt towards the museum, sprinting in the air and aiming at a wall that had no doors or even windows.

Malik knew, intellectually, that Bakura had no reason to splatter him against the wall, and trusted Bakura not to let that happen to him, but the stone looked very real and very solid, and Malik couldn't help but bring up his free arm to shield his face, eyes squeezing shut.

Bakura snickered in his obnoxious way, and they slowed to a stop. Malik cautiously opened his eyes, and gasped.

They were still high above the ground, near the top of the 50-foot ceiling, but what had made Malik's breath catch in his throat was the lights. At this hour, the museum should be dark, except for the exit and emergency lighting, but now the building was full of floating spheres and banners of coloured light. Little will-o'-wisps and mini auroras bobbed and wound through the exhibits as if pulled by the gentle current of a stream.

“Bakura… It's- it's beautiful…!”

The akh's smile was warm, pale feathers and hair reflecting some of the soft jumble of colors around them. “I'm glad you like it.” He gave Malik's hand a little squeeze. “What's your favorite exhibit?”

Malik laughed and tugged at Bakura's hand. “Come on, I'll show you!” The air was solid under his feet as he led the way through the river of lights, but Malik still felt more comfortable on the actual floor. The wax reflected the lights, and the exhibits looked different, ethereal.

They strolled through ancient China and took a shortcut through Mesopotamia to reach the natural history section. The collection of gems and minerals caught Bakura's eye, and the akh was glued to the sight, admiring how they glittered. Malik was very amused at how his partner was truly a thief in his core.

Bakura unknowingly made the thought funnier when he made the glass melt away so he could touch the rocks.

Malik grinned as the akh examined a fluorite cluster. “You look a little like a dragon now. Are you building a hoard?”

The akh coaxed the collection of fluorescent rocks into luminescing. “These are very cool. I'm keeping them.”

“Oh, huh. Does your plan to get me to have fun involve getting me fired?”

“I would be a piss-poor thief if I let the blame fall on someone I actually liked. No, you'll keep your job for as long as you want it.” The rocks Bakura had gathered vanished in a glimmer of light, and new rocks appeared on their original pedestals. The glass rose up towards the ceiling like a curtain, and then the exhibit was just as Malik remembered it.

Satisfied that no blame would fall on him for any shenanigans tonight, Malik turned back to Bakura. “What did you do with the original rocks?”

“I sent them home, to my parent's place in the Fields. I don't have any earthly place to put them, and I'd look pretty silly pushing around a shopping cart for everything I'd like to steal.”

Malik snickered. “If you make a shopping cart, I'll push you around the museum as fast as I can.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before Bakura had whipped up a golden shopping cart and sat in it, tail swishing with excitement. “No takebacks!”

Laughter rang throughout the hallways as Malik fulfilled his promise and carted Bakura through the museum, color and light making the exhibits come alive.

Perhaps too alive.

An elephant’s trumpet echoed through the building as a crocodile skeleton snapped at a stuffed antelope, startling it into fleeing past the barreling shopping cart. A flight of tropical birds flew overhead, a cacophony of colors and sound.

“Bakura," breathed Malik, wide-open eyes reflecting their vibrant surroundings.

The akh lifted his hand to touch the whale shark drifting serenely overhead. “A lot more fun than classifying shabti #423Q, isn't it?”

“Absolutely..." Malik took in their surroundings with awe, but the sight of a sign up ahead made mischief glimmer in his eyes. “Bakura, is _everything_ in the museum alive now?"

Bakura had grabbed a floating jellyfish by the tentacles and was dragging it along like a balloon. “Yes, I _am_ ripping off Night at the Museum. Might as well do it right!”

Malik could practically see the pop culture reference fly over his head. “Uh, sure. Anyways, why don't you stay right here? I'll be back in a second.”

“No problem." The akh was eyeing a Portuguese Man o’ War, with a mind to swap out his balloon animal.

Malik slowed the cart to a stop, then set off at a jog into the next hall.

Bakura had tied the jellyfish and the Man o’ War to the shopping cart and had blessed a penguin's maiden air voyage when a chorus of whooshes and coos drew Bakura's attention. A herd of knee-high velociraptors charged out of the dinosaur exhibit, hopping and scrambling with hoots of glee as a Concavenator chased after them, Malik laughing as he clung to the dinosaur's neck.

_“This!! Is!! Awesome!!”_ shouted Malik, and the sight of his wild, delighted grin had Bakura's _ib_ growing three sizes. Once Bakura regained a little of his composure, he took off into the air, swooping into the dinosaur hall. He promptly re-emerged with a flock of chirping Archaeopteryxes, each bird-like dinosaur holding a small water balloon in their talons.

Malik turned back at the noise, his smile at the sight of Bakura flying turning into an expression of mock outrage at the threat of a water balloon barrage.

Bakura laughed. “Bombs away, ladies!"

The Concavenator reared upwards and snapped at the falling water balloons, Malik shrieking with glee as he got splashed.

Malik pointed at the akh and shouted, “Get him!". His mount complied with a whoop, and the dinosaur chased after Bakura and his air squadron. While the Concavenator had to do some creative footwork to avoid stepping on the living exhibits roaming the museum, the flock had to flow over, under, or around floating obstacles, leading to some impressive aerial stunts that had Bakura laughing with exhilaration and Malik cheering at the top of his lungs.

However, the museum, full of life and color, was really too beautiful to rush through, and the theropod seemed to sense Malik's thought, slowing down to an amble. They wandered into an exhibit on the history of manufacturing, and Malik was surprised to see a stack of ordinary towels behind glass.

“Oh yeah. The textile exhibit." He climbed off his dinosaur, which then started chasing the Archaeopteryxes with new vigor. The glass casing melted away heatlessly as he approached it, and Malik was able to grab one of the towels with ease.

Bakura landed nearby, and after browsing the selection of modern and ancient cloth, he started gathering all of the softest ones he could find. By the time Malik was dry, Bakura had assembled a respectable blanket nest, possibly one of the most valuable and illegal ones on the planet. Malik grinned and flopped onto it with a pleased sigh, and Bakura followed suit, covering them both up with a sumptuous bolt of brocade silk.

While his heartbeat settled down to its usual rhythm, Malik was content to watch the stream of light and color, and the cavorting creatures freed from their glass and rope cages.

“This is nice… Thanks, Bakura. This was a lot of fun.”

Bakura's tail thumped lightly somewhere in their cloth pile.

“Good. You've been working too hard."

“I have, haven't I? Though, on that topic… perhaps I should be getting home soon.” He snuck a glance at Bakura. “Would you come back home with me?”

Bakura was seemingly distracted by an owl's silent flight overhead. “Yeah, I guess I can drop you off before I head back to the Field of Reeds for the night.”

Malik eyed him, then gave him a little nudge. “You can stay at my place. I've got more pillows than I can count.”

Bakura's gaze immediately snapped back to Malik's face. A little smile made his lips curl.  He shifted beside Malik, nestling more deeply into their blanket nest and stretching out one of his large wings, settling it lightly over Malik's back.

“Thank you. I think I'd like that.”

Malik smiled.

“I'm glad."

He scooted a little closer, relishing the gentle brush of soft fabric and softer feathers.

“There's no reason why should leave _right now_ , though…”

Bakura's feathers and scales lit up the fabric with their glow, and they settled in for a lovely little nap under the aurora-like glow of the floating lights.

 

* * *

 

“Well, since I guess we're headed in the same direction again… It's my turn to give you a ride, Malik.”

Malik eyed him curiously. “You're going to fly me and my bike back home?”

“Nah, your house is too close for that to be a fun flight. And your bike will be fine just teleporting.” Bakura waved the idea away, then grinned up at Malik. “Have you ever ridden a horse?”

“Yeah, once, when I was a kid. Then I fell off of it, kicked the horse, and had to be rescued by Rishid.”

Bakura laughed delightedly, his hip wings fluttering and his tail slapping the ground with mirth.

“Oh gods, I can just imagine it! A tiny blond bratling threatening a stallion with a gold stick bigger than he is. I'm going to cherish that image, ahahaha!” He wiped a tear from his eye. “Oh, but this will be a little different, I promise. First, because you'll be riding with _me_. And second because we're catching a ride with Lambchop instead.”

“Lambchop?”

“Yeah! Check it out, I'll call him.” Bakura slipped two fingers into his mouth and blew an ear-splitting whistle.

Malik clapped his hands over his ears at the noise, then watched with awe as a glowing portal appeared before them. He squinted, hoping to get a glimpse of Aaru, but all he saw was the silhouette of a large, horned beast galloping towards them at an alarming pace.

The akh merely tapped a clawed foot on the ground while he waited for the duatling to reach them, so Malik refused to be intimidated by the massive creature.

While it still had way too many eyes and way too many legs and way too many fangs, the hellbeast's wool was thick and luxurious, and flowers had been woven into its fur. Its huge, curled horns sported carefully painted colorful patterns, and someone had fashioned it a collar woven with beads of lapis lazuli.

“There's a good boy, Ramses.” Bakura stroked the beast's snout.

“Meh-eh-eh,” said Ramses, chewing his cud.

“This- this is your ride, Bakura?” Malik looked up at it in awe.

“Yeah, I caught him in the Duat and rode him to the Tribunal and then into Aaru. He's gotten very fat and spoiled in the Field of Reeds, haven't you, Ramses?”

“Baaa.”

“Mom and Dad nicknamed him Lambchop and it stuck.” He hopped onto the duatling's back, then offered Malik a hand. Malik accepted his hand, and the akh effortlessly lifted Malik into the air and onto Ramses’ warm, woolly back.

The beast shifted underneath him, and Malik instinctively gripped Bakura's waist, careful to hold him just above his hip wings. The akh turned his face to grin at him, his tail moving to wrap around Malik's waist securely.

“Ready to ride home?”

Malik thought of his once-quiet and peaceful apartment being invaded by an akh with too much power and time on his hands who would insist on disrupting his daily routine as often as possible.

Malik smiled. “Yeah. I'm ready. Let's go!”

He shifted to hold the akh a little more securely, settling his chin on Bakura's shoulder and laughing when one of the akh's head-wings inadvertently brushed against his cheek.

Bakura grinned, his tail giving Malik a reassuring little squeeze. He buried his fingers into the thick fur covering Ramses’ neck.

“You heard the man. Let's go, Lambchop!”

The duatling took one slow step forward, then another, sorting out its limbs. Then all of a sudden, Lambchop was accelerating into a gallop, hooves clicking up a stampede on the pavement as the thieves on its back whooped and hollered all the way back to Malik's apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another big thanks to the wonderful [Bittercalypso](https://bittercalypso.tumblr.com/) for the super cute artwork!!

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to revisit this akh Bakura AU with fluffy and/or lemony one-shots from time, so if you'd like to know about those when they're posted, please follow the series ["His Second Second Life"](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1180196).
> 
> Oh, and very important: Sati and Hamadi are actually [dmbakura](http://dmbakura.tumblr.com/) / [Girahimu-sama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girahimu_sama)'s OCs, borrowed with permission! [Check out more delightful Sati and Hamadi lore here!](http://dmbakura.tumblr.com/search/momkura)


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